HEALTHY LIVING: Your brain is the other vital part of hearing

Published 6:00 pm, Sunday, March 6, 2011

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HEALTHY LIVING: Your brain is the other vital part of hearing

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Everyone knows how important ears are in hearing—part of them are located outside your head. But a few inches away, inside your head, is the processing center that interprets those sounds, and scientists are just beginning to understand how our brains make sense of the sounds around us. And every increment of knowledge in this area helps hearing professionals do a little better job of designing and fitting hearing aids for patients.

A recent study sheds some new light on how we differentiate our own speech from that of others. It seems that activity in the auditory

(hearing) cortex when we speak and listen is amplified in some regions and not in others.

Researchers from two California universities tracked electrical signals emitted from the brains of hospitalized epilepsy patients. These patients were chosen because, due to their epilepsy treatment, they already had electrodes implanted over their auditory cortices to track the focal points of their seizures. What those researches found was surprising.

Previously, neuroscientists had thought that a person’s auditory system was quiet when they were talking. But in this study they found one group of millions of neurons firing together every time a person hears a sound, right next to millions of other neurons that ignore external sounds but fire every time a person speaks.

The study did not determine why this distinction is necessary, but some postulated that tracking our own speech may be important for language development, monitoring what we say and adjusting to various noisy environments. It can also help us make sure that what we meant to say is actually what we say.

Many of us have seen the unfortunate video of the Grammy reporter who, apparently because of a type of migraine, was suddenly unable to form the words she meant to say. She said she could hear very well that she was not saying what she meant to say, but was unable to make the right words come out.

Some have noted that people with schizophrenia are often unable to distinguish between their own internal voices and the voices of others, which suggests they may lack the selectiveness of this auditory function.

The study has helped neuroscientists better map the brain, which should help neurosurgeons as they perform surgery on certain regions of the brain.

We already understood that hearing loss made it difficult to hear what others have to say. Now we have a better understanding of how important it is for us to hear ourselves. This could make hearing loss twice as stressful as we previously thought.

If you or someone you know is struggling with hearing loss, please understand that it is indeed a stressful situation that, in most cases, can be helped significantly with hearing aids. Many hearing loss patients are surprised at how much more comfortable they feel in a variety of social situations after getting hearing aids and getting used to hearing again.

Audio Acoustics, a full-ser¬vice hearing center owned by Orland Purcell, Au. D., has been in business since 1975. Ginger Peugh, Au. D., is his associate. They offer industrial hearing conservation, diagnostic audiology and a wide variety of hearing aids. They are located at 2101 North Midland Drive, Suite Four. The phone number is 689-4327.